Educator groups say there's much to be lost in return for saving $27 million in the school board’s attempt to narrow a looming deficit.

The Toronto District School Board risks losing some of its youngest, most diverse staff if it decides to lay off 248 high school teachers to help balance the budget, warn two mentors from high-need neighbourhoods.

“We’re talking about teachers who can really reflect the diversity of their students, and we’re asking the board to consider the impact of losing the significant diversity that’s concentrated in the teachers with less seniority,” said Chris Penrose, executive director of Success Beyond Limits, a mentoring group in the Jane-Finch neighbourhood and member of the board’s Equity Policy Advisory Committee.

Penrose and east-end mentor Rahma Siad-Togane urged the board’s human resources and professional learning committee Thursday to be careful when considering a staff report that calls for cutting teacher positions to help wipe out a looming $55 million operating deficit for next year.

“Diversity is important, even diversity of faith — we have a mentor in our summer program who was fasting for Ramadan, just like a number of the students in the program, and that was an important connection,” Penrose said.

Siad-Togane noted it’s important to have younger teachers who can relate to students, as well as seasoned veterans.

Of the 248 teaching jobs recommended to be cut, 129.5 are a direct result of a 3,400-student drop in high school enrolment, noted staff.

The report also calls for cutting 22 vice-principals, which could have an impact on school safety, noted Simon Storey, executive director of the Toronto School Administrators’ Association, which represents the board’s 1,000 principals and vice-principals.

“Vice-principals are a very important part of a school’s safety plan, and in those challenging moments, you often find the vice-principal is the first responder,” said Storey.

Trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher suggested that part of the deficit is some $27 million that the provincial government has ordered the board to repay early as part of a debenture it took out in 2008.

“It’s an abuse of power to call in that debenture early, and we’re getting blamed for something that’s not our fault,” she said.

Trustees will vote next Wednesday on the staff’s recommendations, which include chopping a number of school librarians and guidance counsellors — mainly in elementary schools — as well as some of the music teachers who travel from school to school. The staff cuts would save about $27 million, or half of the deficit.

Cary-Meagher also noted that the province provides school boards $338 less per kindergarten student than for a Grade 1 student, even if the kindergarten student attends all day.

“That adds up to about $9 million less for us, which also contributes to our deficit,” she said.

The committee did not take a position on the staff recommendations. It noted that by this fall, about half of all Toronto high schools will have fewer than 800 students, and 40 per cent fewer than 500. “Schools that have smaller student populations will have challenges offering a full breadth of programs,” it says.

While secondary schools take a hit, elementary schools are poised to add teachers and early childhood educators, mostly because of full-day kindergarten.

The loss of secondary positions is also caused in part by the board moving to slightly higher student-teacher ratios. Currently standing at 21.4 to 1, the ratio is moving to 21.7 to 1. The province provides funding for a 22 to 1 ratio.

The estimated $55-million deficit is about half of what it was last year, when the $109-million shortfall was the biggest the board has ever faced.

To balance the books then, trustees cut 430 education assistants, 134 school secretaries, 17 vice-principals, 200 high school teachers, 10 caretakers and six hall safety monitors. It also slashed senior administration by 10 per cent.

Many of the education assistants were offered an opportunity to retrain as early childhood educators to work in full-day kindergarten classrooms. Roughly one-third — or 150 — have done so.

With files from Kristin Rushowy

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